AQUITAINE

GENERAL INFORMATION

Aquitaine forms a région in south-western France along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain, and comprises of five departments: Dordogne, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

Bordeaux, the capital of Aquitaine, is situated 350 miles southwest of Paris. One of the best-known cities in France, its fine wines are appreciated the world over by millions of connoisseurs. A major center of communications and commerce, Bordeaux is the western terminus of an excellent road and rail network between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. This region of wide-open spaces includes Europe's largest forest, and offers a long list of outdoor activities in an authentic and healthy environment. The number and quality of its golf courses has made it France's leading region for golfers.

HISTORY 

In Roman times, the province of Gallia Aquitania originally comprised the region of Gaul between the Pyrenees Mountains and the Garonne River, but Augustus Caesar added to it the land between the Garonne and the Loire River. At this stage the province extended inland as far as the Cevennes and covered an area about one third of the size of modern France. Aquitaine was quite thoroughly Romanized in its culture, unlike northern Gaul.

The 4th century AD saw the Roman province of Aquitaine divided into three separate provinces:

• Aquitania prima, the north-eastern portion, including the territories which later became Berry, Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Velay, Gévaudan, Rouergue, Albigeois, Quercy and Marche
• Aquitania secunda, the northwestern portion, with its capital at Burdigala (Bordeaux) and comprising the future Bordelais, Poitou Saintonge,Angoumois and western Guienne
• Aquitania tertia or Aquitania Novempopulana (of the "nine peoples"), the southernmost and most strongly Basque portion, adjoining the Pyrennees and covering what later became Bigorre, Comminges, Armagnac, Béarn, the Basque country, Gascony, etc.

In the 5th century, as Roman rule collapsed, the Visigoths filled the power vacuum, until they were driven out in 507 AD by the Franks, with a mixed army of mercenaries and federates, who included Burgundians. When Clotaire II died in 629, he divided the kingdom of the Franks and gave Aquitaine to his son Charibert II, who set up his capital at Toulouse and strengthened his claims by marrying Gisela, the heiress of Aquitania Novempopulana; however, Frankish control was never very secure; they were primitive by comparison and had only the most rudimentary sense of urban life and the res publica. Aquitaine put up little resistance to the Moors in the 8th century, but Charles Martel drove them out, and Aquitaine passed into the Carolingian Empire.

The heirs of Charlemagne divided and redivided their inheritance, and Aquitaine passed out of the control of Neustria, the western kingdom of Charlemagne's house, and in the 9th century the leading local counts gradually freed themselves of the vestiges of royal control. Bernard Plantevelue (ruling 868-86) and his son, William I (ruling 886-918), whose power base was in Auvergne, called themselves dukes of Aquitaine for a time. William V (ruling 995-1030) refounded a new duchy of Aquitaine, that was based in Poitou, and this power center survived. Aquitaine contained Poitiers, Auvergne, and Toulouse. In 1052 the duchy of Gascony became part of "Aquitania", by personal union of duke William VIII. Aquitaine achieved a high literate court culture of courteoisie that peaked under William VIII (ruled 1058-86). Duke William IX, the troubadour was a poet himself, and Poitiers became a center of the musical poetry of the troubadours. When William X died (1137), his daughter Eleanor of Aquitaine, the greatest heiress of France, married her guardian, Louis VII of France and followed him on crusade, then had the marriage annulled under the pretext of kinship in 1152 to marry his greatest rival Henry II of England. She maintained an elegant chivalric court at Poitiers. Her sons, Richard I and John, and their successors as kings of England were dukes of Aquitaine (later known as Guienne).

Fighting during the Hundred Years War enabled Edward III of England to reconstruct the old duchy in the 1360s, but France finally conquered the remainder of it in 1453. After that the history of Aquitaine became part of the history of France.

THINGS TO DO AND SEE

A wine-growing region of worldwide reputation, the vineyards of Bordeaux produce Margaux, Medoc, Sauterne, and Saint-Emilion wines, leading examples from an area where many excellent wines are produced. Aquitaine abounds with time-honored recipes and new cuisine, with local specialties like truffles and foie gras to whet the appetite of the gourmet. The outstanding finds at Lascaux, La Madeleine, and Rouffignac, the abbeys, fortresses, and châteaux, and the Gallo-Roman remains will delight those interested in architecture and archaeology.

Hiking along the Basque cliff road offers the opportunity to follow the last 25 kilometres of the Aquitaine coast, from the Erretegia Beach at Bidart down to the Sokoburu cape at Hendaye, just a stone’s throw from Spain.  The Walk offers unspoilt panoramic views over the Bay of Biscay, the Basque coastline and the Pyrenees. 

The Pyrenees mountain, which in its Basque part exceeds 2,000 meters only at Pic d’Orthy, offers its green meadows, its moor and above all its typical villages where tradition and folklore still mingle with natives’ life for tourists' delight (Basque pelota, strength games, dances and fairs). Further South, the Pyrenees range rises as to offer in the Natural Park’s magnificent setting, every instance of mountain sports, summer hiking, climbing, as well as snow fields and developed resorts that allow the practice of all the winter sports.